


The Snowbringer

by Blackbird Song (Blackbird_Song)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Challenge Response, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Plotty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:59:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackbird_Song/pseuds/Blackbird%20Song
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Ianto embark on a pursuit that tests limits they hadn't expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Snowbringer

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Twelve Days of Janto Challenge (aka Holiday!Bang) at [](http://community.livejournal.com/thestopwatch/profile)[**thestopwatch**](http://community.livejournal.com/thestopwatch/) and re-posted here with greatly expanded notes in addition to the translations at the end of the story.
> 
> Jack Harkness can't die. The rest of us can, so please don't do what he and Ianto do in this.
> 
> Many thanks to my husband for the beta.

Jack sat at his desk, not-writing his reports, not-filling-in the archive forms for the Valderian hairbrush that only he could handle (he really didn't want to envision Ianto or Gwen without any body hair for the next decade), and most definitely not-focusing on the upcoming multi-national holiday. There had been a time, eons ago in his timeline, when he'd found Christmas quaint and kind of cute.

During his stint with the Time Agency, he'd proposed and been approved to 'study the changing social customs and mores of Earth's Western Hemisphere' by 'engaging in various celebrations of importance over a period of five millennia'. His supervisors had put an end to it when he drained the agency's coffers of half a trillion currency units in order to pay for an epic binge on sex, intoxicants and shopping sprees. Christmas had definitely been his favourite, religious celebrations and all. (He'd always been a sentimental drunk.) Of course, as punishment, they'd paired him with 'John Hart', and stuck them in a time loop so stultifying that he'd very nearly chewed off his own foot just for something interesting to do.

Since he'd been stranded on nineteenth-century Earth, though, and had been forced to experience the holidays year after year, usually without the benefit of close relationships or native camaraderie to bear him company as the time markers passed inexorably by, he'd become by turns disenchanted, bitter, terrified and deeply, achingly lonely. His interest in observing any festivity in the latter half of December had vanished with Alex's New Year's killing spree, and he'd spent the holidays glued to the Hub ever since, shooing everybody out and locking the place up tight so that nobody could get in.

As he sat there, not-brooding and trying hard to not-think about the heavy, painful loss of Owen and Tosh, or the immeasurable gratitude he tried to not-feel for the spared lives of his two very favourite people, he became aware of a steady presence behind him, and reached for the hand he knew was reaching for his shoulder. "You should be going home," he said, quietly.

"This is home," scoffed Ianto, squeezing the hand that had intercepted his.

"Yeah, but it shouldn't be," said Jack. "You should get out more. See more daylight."

"Have you seen what I'd have to look at if I did that?" snorted Ianto.

Jack chuckled, half-heartedly, wondering how hard it would be to get rid of Ianto this year. "Most of the alien activity occurs at night."

"Who says I'm talking about aliens?"

Jack laughed. "You did NOT just say that!"

"Seriously, Jack, have you seen some of the people who show up round here?"

"Well, yeah, but we don't know how they came to lose their teeth, and some of them probably have metabolic problems, so we shouldn't really—"

"I don't mean the fat ones—though on a public health level, I suppose it is disturbing to see the national obesity rate rising."

Jack rolled his eyes as Ianto moved around him to perch on his desk.

"I'm talking about those nasty, pinched-up little rodents you pass every time you go near the Senedd building. You know—the ones that always wear suits that are about five years out of date and gel their hair enough so a force eight gale can't touch it—"

Jack touched his own soft spikes, self-consciously.

"—Sorry. And they're always talking on their mobiles and glaring at you if you set foot in their path. And none of them is over five-foot six, and they all have small man syndrome." Ianto shuddered.

"Good thing I'm over six foot, then," said Jack. "I never knew you were quite that much of a snob, Ianto."

"Hello, I'm Ianto Jones." Ianto stuck out his hand. "Have we met?"

"Harkness," purred Jack, taking Ianto's proffered hand, "Jack Harkness." He tugged Ianto down onto his lap.

"Oh, fuck!" said Ianto as the chair tipped back, depositing them in an undignified sprawl on the floor.

"Oh, god!"

Both heads turned to the door.

"Look, I—I didn't mean to interrupt anything—again—only I just got a report on a—well—" Gwen swallowed. "A yeti."

Ianto scrambled to his feet. "A what?"

Jack got up as well, righting the chair as he did, and noticing the gleam in Ianto's eyes. Something warmed within him.

"They said it was a yeti," said Gwen, a little more boldly. "In Snowdonia."

Jack giggled. "Isn't that where you and Rhys are going for Christmas?"

"Nice try, Jack," said Gwen. Then she sighed. "Look, I know some people up there, so I could investigate it, if you'd like. I know you don't like to leave the Hub at this time of year." She gave him a warm smile that broke his heart.

"No, that's all right," he said, crossing to her. "You and Rhys need the time, and I've got nothing planned. I can—"

Ianto shifted pointedly, and when Jack turned to look, he saw the eagerness in his face that warmed and broke him, every time.

"Ianto and I can handle it," he amended, suppressing a sigh at Ianto's rare grin. "I thought you had a family dinner to get to," he needled.

"All the more reason to investigate a yeti," said Ianto.

Gwen's eyes widened.

"Well, I wouldn't want anything to happen to spoil Christmas dinner for my family, would I?" said Ianto, smoothly.

Gwen never could suppress a smirk, thought Jack, just before he caught Ianto's wink at her. "So," he said, herding them all back to business, "care to tell us all about this yeti report?"

* * *

"What's this nonsense all about?" snapped Ianto.

Jack eyed him, worriedly, as he sped up the A470. "Sorry, but it's the most direct route."

Ianto looked up, puzzled. "What are you talking—" He saw the sign for Brecon. "Jack, I'm over the fucking cannibals. Have been long since. Not that I'm planning a holiday in Bryn Blaidd anytime soon." He refocused his eyes on the screen. "This just doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't?"

"This woman—Darla Hendricks—she's babbling on about the yeti speaking."

Jack narrowly dodged a sheep and swore. "What did it say?"

"Something about wanting garnets, apparently. She says she won't—Jack!"

"Sorry," said Jack, bringing the SUV back into line. "What are all these sheep doing out in December?"

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Wales," he deadpanned. "Not to mention climate change. Wherever Gwen's going, I doubt she'll get as much snow as she'd hoped."

"At least she won't get sheep," said Jack, eying a pair of them grazing very close to the edge as he whizzed around a spectacular curve.

"Actually, we may not see as many as we should," said Ianto, ignoring the near-death experience. "It seems as though there've been more sheep gone missing off Snowdon than usual."

Jack snorted. "Every few years, it's always the same. Some farmer hits hard times and blames it on monsters who turn out to be drunken yobs on motorbikes scaring their damned sheep off the edge of a cliff."

"Not this time, by the look of it. Not unless you'd call a hundred sheep in the last two days typical."

"Oh yeah? Think this yeti sighting has anything to do with it?"

"I thought you were the expert on aliens." There was a note of panic in Ianto's voice.

Jack patted Ianto's thigh. "Don't worry. Yeti aren't aliens."

"You mean yeti are real?" Ianto's voice lit with the excitement he couldn't hide.

"Yep," said Jack, sighing as he dodged his fifth sheep. "And if that's what's taking the sheep off the roads, I wish it'd show up here, right about now."

"And they're not aliens?"

"The yeti? No, they're from earth. At least, we think they are. Though I've never heard of any in Wales. The sheep, on the other hand...."

"Yes, I know you think they're from Raxacoricofallapatorius, but they've been documented as terran, even if they do seem to disapprove of you."

"Only the Welsh ones," said Jack pointedly. "I mean, seriously, have you seen how they _eye_ you? Like you're trespassing on their territory, or something?"

"And your point is...?"

Jack spared Ianto a sidelong glare before dodging—a boulder. "Ianto, sheep shouldn't be that _smart_. They're supposed to run away from anything that's chasing them, follow each other blindly, eat grass to the root, and fall down and not be able to get up. These guys eye you up like they're trying to decide what sort of sauce they're going to pour on you once they've cooked you up for lunch!"

Ianto blinked at him. "Did you have a bad experience with a ruminant when you were small?"

"Not then, no, but I did spend some time in the stomach of a novox just after I joined the Time Agency. Took me two hours to charge up the blaster and make my exit." Jack shuddered. "If I'd passed to the second stomach, I'd have died really badly."

"Ah," said Ianto, and Jack couldn't see whether the indulgent tone was accompanied by a grimace or a polite smile. "Jack...would you have actually died, then? Stayed dead, that is?"

"I don't know," said Jack, at last. Then, before Ianto could say anything more, "What was it that woman was saying? About the yeti?"

"Oh, um, she...." Ianto refocused on his computer screen. "Let's see.... She said she wouldn't talk to anyone except Torchwood."

Jack winced inwardly as Ianto scrambled for cover. "Some secret organization, eh?" He reached back and squeezed Ianto's hand, briefly. "Good thing we just happen to be on our way to...where is she?"

"Um...near Dolwyddelan. Place called Roman Bridge, just off the A470, past Blaenau Ffestiniog. She's in a self-catering cottage."

"What else do we know about her?"

"Working on it...ah! American, fifty-seven years old, widowed, one son, one daughter, three grandchildren. Good health, travelling alone...scheduled for Lasik surgery on the twelfth of January."

"Oh, now that's interesting," said Jack, rolling his eyes. Then he grinned. "So when we're done interviewing her, what say we book a room in a nearby B&amp;B and, uh, have a little holiday fun?"

"Don't you want to go straight back to the Hub and kick me out till the second?"

The air in the car took on a bitter scent, even through Ianto's mild tone, and Jack found himself at a loss. "Well, I—"

"Jack...." Ianto took in a breath. "Just because her vision isn't perfect doesn't mean she didn't see anything. She's not listed as legally blind. Her driver's license doesn't even require her to wear glasses."

"Besides," added Jack, wincing a little at the change of subject, "it's hard to miss something the size of a yeti, even if you can't see much."

"Exactly," said Ianto, as he programmed the satnav. "Which might mean that we'll be here a bit longer than might work for getting back to the Hub in one piece, tonight."

Jack smiled. "Never let it be said that I wasn't a diligent interrogator," he purred, smoothly evading another sheep.

"Perish the thought."

Jack could feel the slight rise in air temperature as Ianto smiled.

* * *

Darla Hendricks caught Jack's eye the second he saw her. She was trim, gorgeous and looked far younger than her age, and he was utterly enchanted until she opened her mouth.

"Torchwood!" she yelled as they exited the car. "You must be—"

"Cap'n Jack Harkness," he interjected, with his fullest grin.

"Darla Hendricks," she said, shaking his hand with perfect firmness. She looked at Ianto, and Jack kept his smile in place, grinning broadly enough to muffle his ears, a little.

"Ianto Jones."

The joy Jack felt at hearing Ianto's soothing voice was brutally murdered by Darla's ear-shredding, nose-blowing twang.

"Nice to meet you," she replied.

_At least she doesn't yell, close up,_ thought Jack.

"You, too," said Ianto, with the suave calmness he reserved for strangers. "This your first visit to Wales?"

"Yes, but not to the UK. I've been to England twenty-five times!"

"Twenty-five? Really? That's impressive," said Ianto, the particular cant of his smile revealing to Jack the same agony he was enduring.

"But of course you'd know all about that, already, with the network you've got," continued Darla, with a conspiratorial pat to Ianto's arm.

"You seem to know a lot about us," said Jack, stepping forward to offer his arm and guide her inside.

"Oh, yeah. My second cousin's third wife worked for your outfit in London, for a while. Oh, God! It was so awful, what happened there!" She patted Jack's arm, this time.

Jack glanced at Ianto, who remained resolutely blank.

"Just how much did she tell you?" asked Jack, as he took a seat on the sofa next to Darla.

"Lots of stuff." She shrugged. "She got drunk one night after that whole Canary Wharf thing and told my cousin and me about how you guys find alien technology and use it to defend Britain. She put something in my coffee at breakfast so's I'd forget about it, but it didn't work."

This time, Ianto couldn't quite hide his alarm when Jack locked eyes with him.

"Don't worry," said Darla. "I don't talk unless it's need-to-know."

"That's good to know," said Jack, all his senses on alert. "So why don't you tell us about this yeti?"

"It was weird, you know? I was having a cup of tea in the garden, and I heard this sound. You know, like somebody moaning? And I turned to look, and there was this, like, shadowy sort of thing that I couldn't quite see. I thought my eyes might be playing tricks on me, cause, you know, they've changed, and I have to wear glasses most of the time, and you know how you can sometimes lose something through the rim, if you catch it just right?"

Jack looked blankly at her.

"Tosh used to complain about that, sometimes," said Ianto, softly.

The rush of air from his own lungs caught Jack by surprise. He forced himself to look at Darla, and caught her inquiring gaze. "Go on."

She paused, and then nodded once, conveying more than Jack would have thought possible. When she spoke again, he found that he didn't mind her voice quite so much. "So I looked again, and this time, I saw it kind of shimmer into existence." Her eyes lit up. "Sort of like _Star Trek_, you know? With the transporters?"

Jack grinned.

"What did it look like?" asked Ianto.

"It's hard to describe," said Darla, frowning for the first time. "One minute it was white, then it was blue, then it started to fade into the background, then it seemed like it was really there, and sort of gold. I thought it was kinda pretty."

"Any other distinguishing characteristics?"

"It was about ten feet tall, maybe ten feet one or two, was covered in a sort of weird fur, and had teeth that looked like his." She pointed at Jack. "It also had really strange eyes. They were shiny green and closed across, not up and down. And there was something else." She got a strange look in her own eyes.

"Are you all right?" asked Ianto.

"Oh, yeah," she said. "But...I think the poor thing was crying."

"The police report said it spoke to you," prompted Ianto.

Darla snorted. "You mean the closed-circuit footage you hooked into," she said, with a wink.

Jack exchanged another look with Ianto.

"Oh, for Pete's sake! Look, my son also works for one of those outfits you can't talk about, okay? So when I tell you I don't talk unless it's need-to-know, I mean it!"

Jack raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay!" He chuckled. "So the yeti was talking to you...."

"Well, it wasn't really talking _to_ me. It was more like it was talking in front of me. You know, in spite of me. Like it'd be saying those things even if nobody was there."

"What did it say?" asked Jack, quietly.

Darla shook her head. "It kept talking about garnets," she said. "It didn't make any sense...."

"Can you remember exactly what it said?" asked Ianto.

"It was all kind of garbled, sort of like English, but sort of not. Like, as if its mouth wasn't meant to move that way, or something."

"Anything you can tell us would be helpful," encouraged Jack, "even if you think it sounds crazy."

Darla sighed. "Well, it sounded like it was saying, 'Our Ellen's crib's got David's garnets, and Llewelyn's garnets are with Trevor in a crib of thistles.' See? I told you it didn't make sense!" She shook her head.

"Don't worry," said Ianto. "We've heard worse and saved the day. Haven't we, Jack?"

Jack suddenly became acutely aware of the enormously puzzled frown on his own face. "Yeah, I guess," he said.

Ianto and Darla both snorted. "Well, that inspires confidence," quipped Darla.

"What? Oh! Don't worry. We'll just have to run it through our system and see what we can find. Right, Ianto?"

"Oh, erm...yes, of course. No problem. Getting right on it." Ianto bestowed a subtle glare on Jack, who barely suppressed a smirk.

"Darla," he said, when he could, "did you see where it went?"

"Yeah, it said something about 'our river', and went off that way." She pointed northwest. "It moved pretty fast, for something so big, too. Disappeared just before it got to the trees."

Ianto glanced out the window. "Jack, I just need to go check about something...." He gestured vaguely in the direction of the SUV.

"All right," said Jack, cautiously. "I'll meet you out there, okay?"

"Yep," said Ianto, as he was shutting the door behind him.

"Thank you, Darla," said Jack, as he rose. "We'll be in touch. Oh, and if it shows up again," he pulled out a card and handed it to her, "just call this number. Even if you get the answering machine, it'll reach one of us faster than anything else."

"A tourist office?" she asked, incredulously. "Let me guess...you step into the back room and it's really an elevator down to your secret base."

Jack laughed and kissed her hand. "If I told you that, I'd have to kill you." He winked at her and went to meet Ianto...

...who was out in the garden, stooping low and waving Tosh's scanner over the grass.

"I didn't know you knew how to use that thing," said Jack, with more than a tinge of jealousy welling up inside.

"I know everything," muttered Ianto, eyes never leaving the scanner.

"Okay, so what have you got?"

"Not sure, yet." Ianto frowned at the screen.

Jack approached him cautiously, crossing ground that had most likely been scanned already. "Mind if I take a look?"

Ianto straightened and held the scanner so that they could both view it. "I think there's an odd energy shift."

Jack leaned in a bit. "I can't see anything..."

Ianto drew closer and magnified the resolution. "See...there. It's so small, but it doesn't seem to match anything I've seen before."

Jack brought the scanner very close and squinted at it, arm around Ianto to steady himself. "I still can't—"

Ianto pointed to the screen with a fingertip graceful enough both to highlight the line it traced and to make Jack ache for Tosh. "It seems to appear about every four or five feet," he said.

Jack refused to swallow against the emotion that overwhelmed him as Ianto's voice warmed and devastated him. So close, that blanket of a voice. So close, the day he'd hear it for the last time. "I see it," he said, his voice tighter than he'd like and steadier than he'd feared.

"Have you ever seen it before?"

Jack's eyes were misted over—temporarily useless. "I'm not sure."

"I wish she was here, too."

Jack realised then that they were close enough that their hair was catching together, and that he was squeezing Ianto's shoulder—clinging—too hard. Incapable of speech, he turned his head and pushed his kiss into Ianto's temple, willing it into his marrow.

A loud and pointed throat-clearing from fifteen and a half feet behind him brought him back to his task, though he kept his hand on Ianto's shoulder. "Darla," he said, turning to her with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

"I just remembered something else." Darla approached and held out a small, scaly thing that looked to Jack like something he'd seen in a garden shop somewhere that wasn't earth. Or maybe it had been a zoo. "The yeti put this bulb down on the edge of the garden bed."

Jack glanced at Ianto, whose eyes had lit up just as Tosh's had always done. "Where did he get it?"

"Pulled it out of its fur," said Darla, with a shrug. "I thought it might have some sort of DNA or something that might help you."

Ianto ran the scanner over it, and jumped as the device practically sprang to life. "Whoa! That thing—"

"—never does that," finished Jack. "What's going on with it?"

"Energy pattern I've never seen, and...." He looked up and smiled at Darla. "May I?"

"Wha— Oh, sure," said Darla.

Jack intercepted the object just before it fell into Ianto's outstretched hand. "Can't be sure it's a bulb," he said, quietly. He didn't tell them that the last such thing he'd seen had seeded itself in the atmosphere and wiped out all sentient life on the Holiday Moon of Valenda during the Festival of Kloon while he'd observed from his time ship.

Darla got a panicky look on her face. "I really shoulda thought of that."

"Don't mind Jack," said Ianto. "He's a bit dramatic, sometimes."

Jack didn't say out loud that Ianto had the same expression on his face as he had when they'd said goodbye just before the Daleks were expected to invade the Hub.

Jack held the object between thumb and forefinger. "Care to get a closer scan?" He waggled his eyebrows at Ianto, who rolled his eyes and scanned it.

"Not toxic, according to this...and it looks like Darla's right that it's a bulb." Ianto frowned. "Lloydia serotina," he muttered.

"And that is...?" said Jack.

"A [Snowdon lily](http://www.ukwildflowers.com/Web_pages/lloydia_serotina_snowdon_lily.htm) bulb. They're about to go extinct here, according to the scientists. Global climate change. Not that there were all that many left after the tourists and sheep got through with the ones they could actually reach." His frown deepened. "Don't think it explains the energy signature, though. Not that I've ever scanned a Snowdon lily, before," he added.

Jack leaned once more over Ianto's shoulder to look at the scanner. "Why does that pattern look familiar?" he mused.

"No clue," said Ianto, "unless you mean that it matches the signature from the grass."

Jack frowned, in turn. "I suppose that could be it...."

"So now you guys can track it, right?" Darla looked from one to the other.

"Yup," said Ianto, with a professional smile.

"Well, then, get the hell out of here and go find it!"

Jack grinned. "Yes, Ma'am! Ianto, I think we've just been given our walking papers." He saluted Darla and followed Ianto to the SUV.

* * *

Following the yeti proved an exercise in utter frustration. Ianto sat in the back, twisting between computer screens in a darkness that had descended at half past three, thanks to the clouds lowering overhead. Jack was beginning to view his studious silence as one long, massive curse. It didn't help matters that they'd had to give up first the paved roads and then any semblance of road at all as the signal kept winking in and out.

"Jack, I'm picking it up again two hundred metres north-northwest. Can you see the display, yet?"

"Got it," said Jack, with less than his usual enthusiasm. "It isn't moving, is it?"

"Nope. Rock solid."

"Okay, then it should be right about—"

"Fuck!" Ianto's curse melded with the sound of mountings failing, machinery panicking and glass breaking a split-second before the thump of a body preceded an axle cracking as the back left quarter of the SUV sank into an unseen maw.

Jack braked instinctively, thanking his decision to rig the Range Rover with all-wheel drive and brakes that actually counted for something as he felt first the left and then the right front wheels catch and hold. Foot firmly on the brake pedal, he switched off the ignition and forced the emergency brake to engage. "Ianto?"

There was no answer.

Jack took a breath and forced himself to assess the situation before he moved. As far as he could tell, the front tyres were both gripping solid ground, though he couldn't tell quite why without getting out of the vehicle. The undercarriage was resting on the ground, especially toward the back and left. He risked an experimental shift of weight and found that the car didn't move much. Nor did the tree. Much. "Ianto!"

There was a rustle and a groan. "Here."

"Anything broken?"

"The computer's not looking too good, and there's a window out—"

"I meant you!"

"Oh. No, I don't think so."

"Great. Can you move?"

There was movement in the back and the car shifted. "I'm assuming that's not good," said Ianto.

"Not really," said Jack, glancing back over his shoulder. "You'll need to get out by the right door, preferably right when I do. Can you manage that?"

"I have had some experience sliding around the backs of cars."

"Fine. On three—"

"Hang on...let me get my foot unstuck."

Jack finally turned around enough to get a good look, and winced at Ianto's painfully twisted position and the sight of his right foot caught under the front seat. "Here, let me...." He twisted himself carefully and reached down to feel for Ianto's foot.

"Careful," said Ianto as the car shifted.

"Yeah—I know," said Jack through gritted teeth, as he felt the obstruction jamming Ianto's foot. "What the hell is this thing?"

"I don't know, but if you don't get your arm out of the way, I'll never get out."

"Here I am trying to save you, and all you can do is bitch." The last word came as he caught a piece of metal and shifted it.

"Ow!"

"Sorry...."

"Look, just let me—"

"I think I got it—"

"Aah! Fuck, Jack!"

"Grab my hand! On three—one, two, _three!_"

Teeth clenched with effort, Jack pulled Ianto into the front seat and out the door onto the hummock supporting the right front wheel, though not without a yelp from Ianto and a mutual "Oof!" when they landed.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," said Ianto, sprawled atop Jack.

"Oh, I don't know," said Jack, stroking Ianto's arms. "Reminds me of old times and gives me a chance to check you for broken bones, all at once." He looked into Ianto's eyes. "You okay?"

"Landed funny on my shoulder, but I think it's okay."

Jack winced. "Sorry."

Ianto shook his head. "Happened in the car when the wheel went in the ground." He frowned and fingered Jack's forehead. "You're bleeding."

"Happened when my head hit the tree. Sort of."

"You mean when the bonnet hit the tree and knocked the big branch down onto the windscreen," supplied Ianto, pushing himself up and off Jack with a grimace.

"Yeah," said Jack, taking Ianto's hand and pulling himself up. "That and the part where the branch and my head had an intimate encounter through the glass." He squeezed his eyes shut against the nausea. "Oh, I do like the buzz of a good concussion!"

Ianto caught him gently as he swayed. "Are _you_ all right?"

"Yeah," said Jack, attempting a smile. "As long as I'm leaning against Ianto and not a space-yeti."

"And such is the case, last I checked." Ianto drew an arm around Jack's waist. "Should we try and get you back to town?"

Jack groaned. "What town? We're out in the middle of nowhere and the computer's currently out of service." He leaned into Ianto's warmth. "No, just give me a minute. This should heal up soon." He grinned. "And then I can reset your shoulder."

"You enjoyed that far too much."

"Oh, yeah! It's the whole comrades-in-arms thing. Guys in danger and healing each other through pain, how sick it makes you feel when you have to do that to someone you've come to love, who guards your life as you guard his." He forced another smile. "The feeling you get when a guy trusts you so much that he'll let you hurt him so much he can't see straight, and thank you afterwards." Jack swallowed, remembering the screams of his batman at the Somme as he'd set his leg without benefit of anaesthesia. When the man could talk again, he'd gripped Jack's hand as hard as he could and whispered a thank you with such shining eyes that Jack had nearly lost all control and wept. In the end, he'd peppered the man's face with kisses, instead.

Ianto kissed Jack's cheek. "It's all right," he said, quietly. "Take the time you need."

Jack fought off an onslaught of nausea that melded too easily with his gratitude to Ianto's steady presence and the sneaker wave of grief remembered and reopened that he'd have to block before it overwhelmed him. "So," he said at last, pulling back too early and pushing himself too much, "can I reset your shoulder?"

"No fucking way," said Ianto, fixing Jack with his gaze.

Jack's face fell.

Ianto rolled his eyes. "It doesn't need resetting." He picked up Jack's hand and moulded it to his shoulder. "See? There it is, right in its proper place."

"Mmm, so it is," purred Jack.

Ianto pulled the scanner out of his pocket. "So," he said, his tone changing the subject, "the signal's still good. Let's see...there!" He followed the scanner's increasing excitement to its terminus and picked up another lily bulb. He sighed and handed it to Jack.

"Oh, look, another lily bulb! Wow!" Jack was proud of the utter absence of enthusiasm in his voice. "That makes...what...twenty-two?" He dropped the thing in his left coat pocket.

"Yup. Good thing your pockets are so big."

"Yeah, well, I may be using yours soon."

"My pockets are at your disposal."

"Yeah?" Jack felt the concussion start to lift as he got close enough to nuzzle the electrical field of Ianto's face. "I'll keep that in mind."

"We—" Ianto swallowed. "We'd, er, best be getting on," he said, barely moving back. "Can't have a yeti spoiling Christmas on Snowdon."

Jack cocked a confused head at Ianto.

"You've lived here for _how_ long?" said Ianto, still so close that the breath from 'how' bathed Jack's face in an irresistible warmth.

Jack blinked.

Ianto rolled his eyes and moved away, depriving Jack of all that lovely electricity and heat. "Every year, someone just has to go climbing Mount Snowdon during the Christmas holidays. Lately, it's been quite a lot of people, thanks to better paths and warmer Christmases."

"Yeah, but what about all that holiday cheer and family...stuff?"

"They bring all that with them, now. Even granny in her wheelchair can join the fun, these days. Well, if she's in decent shape and has an agile chair. Snowdon's one of the most accessible mountains in the UK."

"Then how come so many people die on it?" said Jack, following Ianto back to the vehicle.

"It's not that many, and besides, it's a mountain, Jack. People are fucking stupid around mountains."

"So this would be your version of weeding out the unfit?"

Ianto rolled his eyes and walked around the car to where the left rear tyre had sunk. "It's a bit hard to tell in this light, but it looks as though this was hidden under the gorse."

Jack looked where Ianto pointed. The red of the lights made the hole look dark and deep, but the SUV seemed to be sitting higher than he'd remembered.

"Do you suppose we could get it out of here? At least get at the boot?" asked Ianto, shivering a little.

"I heard the axle crack when the wheel went in," said Jack. He didn't have to look at Ianto to know that his face fell at the news. "But I'll see about getting at the boot as soon as you go over there by that rock." He pointed to a boulder about ten feet away.

"Why should—oh, of course." Ianto smiled professionally. "Just try to be careful that you don't, uhm—"

"Die," finished Jack. He shook his head with a game-face smile. "It's rarely my first choice."

Ianto headed for the rock, then turned. "Jack?"

"What?"

"You'll want these." Ianto tossed him his keys.

"Good thinking," said Jack. "I keep forgetting those modifications we made..."

"I know."

"I'd have the procedures tattooed on some part of me that I see all the time, but—"

"Then all of Wales and most of the EU would know exactly how to get into Torchwood," quipped Ianto.

"I was going to say that the tattoo would be gone in half an hour," said Jack, hiding his hurt by addressing himself to the SUV. He pressed the appropriate button on the key fob from a safe distance, and felt a rush of relief as the hatch beeped dutifully and unlatched. Stepping carefully and applying a light hand, he guided it to a stop.

"Alright?" asked Ianto.

"Me, yeah. The computer array, not so much." As he eyed the twisted mountings and the ruined screen dangling near the broken window and the rock that had been responsible, he felt the air shift as Ianto stepped nearby.

"Screen wants replacing—though it seems to be working. Maybe we could mount it in a corner somewhere."

"Dali would've loved it." Jack unlatched the weapons case. "Catch."

"Tranquillizer gun. Stun gun. Stun gun. Dart pack. Dart pack. Dart pack—that many, really? Dart pack. Ammo...me. Ammo you. Torch. Torch. Rope—ooh, the Telvan stuff—very nice! Climbing harness—good thinking. Climbing harness—up is optional, down is mandatory. Oof! Climbing gear. Flare gun. Miss— Fuck, you can't be serious!"

"The thing is ten feet tall and for all we know, it's tossing sheep down like popcorn."

"Jack, how the hell are we going to explain a missile launcher if we fall down Snowdon?"

"Heads up!"

"Portable perception filter. Fine, but we've still got to carry it around...."

"I'll keep it in my coat. Speaking of which, catch!" He tossed Ianto a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.

"What's this?"

"Open it and find out." Jack spared him a quick smile before turning back to the Range Rover and pulling out a pack of protein bars that he stuffed into his unoccupied pocket. He went to the driver's door, trying not to listen to Ianto unwrapping the box, and set the SUV's perception filter. Then, he fished his own keys out of the ignition, leaving the lights on, and shut the door as gently as he could.

"Jack?"

"Yes?" He took a breath and turned back towards Ianto.

"It's too much."

"You don't like it," said Jack, his heart falling, a little. "Look, I know you like the original, but I didn't think you wanted a carbon copy, and they've stopped making the material, and besides, this is a better colour for you—"

"It's beautiful. It fits me perfectly, and it's beautifully made. It's just...too much. Specially for field work."

Jack rounded the corner of the vehicle and stared. "You haven't even put it on, yet."

"I don't have to."

"Ohhh, yes, you do! I want to see it on you just once before you make me take it back."

"If I do that, I might never let it go," mumbled Ianto, fingering the wool with a longing look.

Jack eased the coat over Ianto's light windbreaker, letting his hand linger for the briefest of moments in an echo of Ianto's own soothing touch. He stepped around to look. "Perfect," he said, stifling a very happy sigh.

"Jack, it's—"

"Walk around in it a bit. See how it moves."

Ianto gave a sigh of his own and did as Jack asked, walking to the rock and back. "It does move well," he admitted. "Nice back vent. Long enough for movement but overlaps enough to keep you warm. It's still far too much for field work."

"Here," said Jack, handing him the tranquilizer gun. "Check out the left inside pocket. I think this should fit. No, not the breast pocket. Further down."

Ianto found the pocket he was looking for. "It's sewn shut."

"Oh. Come here."

Ianto did as Jack requested, smirking as Jack knelt in front of him and opened the coat at the waist. "Not exactly the setting I'd have imagined for this scenario."

Jack looked up at him. "Oh, it is too! What about that time in the ruins at—"

"Yes, alright, but at least it was warm that day."

Jack felt for the thread and pulled it out enough to bite off the knot. As he pulled the thread, he felt Ianto's hand stroking his hair.

"What made you think of this?"

"You're always cold, it's Christmas...." Jack rose, sidling up Ianto's body and snaking his arms around him underneath the coat, "and I'm always worried that you'll steal my coat." He eased the tranquilizer gun out of Ianto's hand and into the special pocket.

"I really do love that coat," murmured Ianto.

"And now," said Jack, taking Ianto's hands and pulling them around him under his own coat, "you have one just as nice." He wrapped his arms back around Ianto. "Happy Christmas."

"I thought you didn't approve of Christmas."

Jack let out a sigh, smiling slightly up at the sky, hiding the sudden surge of emotion that threatened to consume him. "Remind me to tell you about the kind of trouble I got into when I did Christmas." He looked back down, into Ianto's eyes, and saw a matching intensity there. He kissed him, heart pounding as it hadn't since he'd fallen in love with Estelle. "We should—"

"Go after the yeti." Ianto seemed just as flummoxed as Jack felt.

"Well, I was going to say, 'get a room,' but if you'd rather chase a ten-foot furball...."

"Torchwood's work is never done."

Jack growled and pulled away.

Ianto turned towards the weapons pile that Jack had tossed him, but stopped. "Jack...thank you. For the coat. It's perfect."

Jack grinned in delight. "You're welcome."

"But we're leaving the missile launcher in the car."

* * *

"Ianto! Stay close!"

The wind gave a warning howl and snow began to swirl around Jack's face, caressing his nose as though he were its god. For a split-second, he remembered his drunken conversation with Douglas Adams about the Rain Trainers of Blent, and how they disguised themselves as freight workers in order to train the local sentient Rain to muck up the destructive tourist trade that had sprung up. It had been such a successful ploy that the Trainers had bred and trained the Rain to infiltrate the ecosystems of other planets that were becoming endangered by unregulated tourist invasions. As a few flakes made an experimental trek up his left nostril, Jack wondered now if some of the Rain had been trained for Special Ops and deposited on Earth about three centuries before schedule.

"Ianto! Where are you?"

"Jack," hissed Ianto.

Jack tapped his earpiece. "Why are you calling me when—"

"Come back to where you last saw me. And be quiet!" And then the connection went dead.

Jack swore under his breath and clung to the rock face, edging his way back until he hit the narrow path where he could pick up his speed. He scrambled over the last boulder and slipped round the corner only to run smack into Ianto from behind. Quick as lightning, he grabbed the rock face and pulled Ianto towards it and against him before anyone could lose balance and tumble into the abyss.

"Fuck!" huffed Ianto, as the wind was knocked out of him.

"Sorry," said Jack, not letting him go. "What's going on?"

"Did you see it, Jack?" He looked straight up and then back along the ledge they'd negotiated earlier.

"What?"

"It was coming towards me and then it stopped. I don't know if it really saw me. It seemed sort of...misty."

"Misty?"

"Sort of like a fog patch with fur."

Jack frowned, trying to grasp a sensation on the outer edges of memory. "What happened?"

"It...sort of...appeared. Over there." Ianto pointed to a raised outcropping with a flattened top. "And it just sat there, like it was tired. Or sad. And then it...I don't know, just sort of...was on the path coming towards me. That's when I contacted you. And then it just looked right through me and started climbing straight up."

"Where did it go then?"

"I don't know. It just disappeared about halfway up."

Jack followed Ianto's gaze up the jagged cliff. "That is SO not a yeti!"

Ianto twisted his neck around to look at Jack, inquiringly.

"Not even close. Yeti don't look like 'fog patches with fur', and contrary to popular myth, they can't disappear. More to the point, they can't scale cliffs like this." Jack hugged Ianto against the gust of wind that whipped between them and the cliff face, holding onto the rock and his teammate by main force.

"We've got to get out of here, Jack," shouted Ianto above the wind's howl.

"You think?" yelled Jack.

They began to inch their way back the way they'd come, clinging to the rock wall against the onslaught of wind and snow that tried to separate them from it.

Jack had been in worse situations. He knew this on an intellectual level, but in the face of the sheer power and shearing wind that Snowdonia was hurling at them, he couldn't feel anything but terror. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't had Ianto to protect. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if either of them were the rugged outdoorsman type, weathered and boiled-leather hard against the raging elements. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if—

"Jack—"

And just like that, Ianto was gone. Slipped out from under his arm and off the ledge into the abyss.

"Ianto!" He heard nothing but wind. "Ianto!" He shone his torch uselessly down, seeing nothing but roiling snow. And he heard nothing but wind. "IANTO!"

He was alone.

The scream that welled up from within shook him to the foundations of his soul and surged up and through and out of him in a mighty roar.

And then everything went silent. And there was Ianto's voice in his mind's ear: _Up is optional, down is mandatory._

Jack let go.

And landed fifteen metres below on a ledge and a lump of wool.

"Ow!" said the lump of wool.

Jack grasped at the rock wall to prevent himself from slipping further. "Ianto?"

"You bellowed?"

"You heard?"

"You probably scared off the yeti."

"You heard and you didn't yell back?"

"Winded."

"Oh."

"You could've waited a bit to do your death drop."

"How do you know I didn't slip?"

"You don't slip."

Jack could feel the look Ianto gave him, even though he was still turned away and hidden under his new coat. "You planning to stay there all night?"

"Yes. Wide ledge, warm coat, and a good windbreaker just dropped by."

"Are you hurt?"

"I fell off a mountain, Jack."

"Ianto!"

"Nothing broken, but I think you'll be resetting my shoulder again, and possibly my leg." Ianto shifted and let out a bark of pain.

Jack shone his torch on the moving lump and found Ianto's face peeking out of the coat. "What?"

"Bruised rib. Maybe cracked."

Noting a lull in the snow, Jack switched the torch setting to 'fog' and checked their surroundings. He grimaced.

"What?" asked Ianto.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

"Whichever way's not going to make me scream."

"Okay, so the first bit of good news is that you're wearing a harness."

Ianto eyed him sceptically.

"The next is that we're lucky, and there's a grassy slope not too far from us."

"What's the catch?"

"The bad news is that it's a hundred foot drop down, and I'll have to lower you by rope to get you there."

"Right. Let me know when the helicopters get here."

"Not happening." Jack pulled the rope from his coat and began threading it through his harness.

"I am not abseiling down Snowdon—or wherever we are—in the middle of a dark and stormy night. Sounds like a fucking romance novel."

"I really wish I could offer you a choice, but I can't. I have to tie you in. Do you need help turning over?"

"No. Just don't let me fall off." Ianto took a stilted breath and blew it out. "Did I ever tell you I don't do so well with heights?"

Jack shifted over to wrap a guiding arm around Ianto. "I've got you."

Ianto drew in another breath, and Jack could feel him clamping down on the pain as he turned face up. "Maybe two ribs...."

Jack squeezed his shoulder before clipping caribiners to the appropriate attachment points on his full-body climbing harness and slipping the Telvan rope through them.

"You know what you're doing...."

The unvoiced _"right?"_ brought Jack up short. He wasn't a mountaineer, and they both knew it. "With knots, yes, I do," he said, with the soothing conviction he knew Ianto craved. He brightened. "More importantly, the rope does, too."

"It's sentient?"

Jack laughed a little. "It responds to tension and heat and adjusts its length, tensile strength and grip, accordingly."

"Meaning...."

"If you know the right moves, it'll do whatever you want."

"I don't know the right moves, Jack."

"Which is why I'll be doing all the work." Jack eased his way up enough to slot a Phyllidorian anchor into the nearest fissure and watch it take hold before he slipped a caribiner through the ring and onto the rope. "All you have to do is hang on and stay seated. Or at least upright. How's the leg?"

"It might just be bruised."

"Hold that positive thought. Now, remember your basic training?"

"Oh, god...."

"Up you come!" Jack pulled him up by his right (good) hand and steadied him. "You all right?"

"Just get me down—wait, how are you going to get down?"

"Don't worry about that. Now, over you go, while there's a lull in the wind." Jack anchored himself against the cliff face and wrapped the bulk of the rope under his hips.

Ianto leaned forward and kissed Jack quickly.

"See you in a few," said Jack.

"On belay?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "What did they teach you at Torchwood One? Never mind!"

Ianto looked at him, desperately.

Jack sighed. "Belay on." He shook his head to hide his own worries, and took the strain as Ianto went over the edge and pushed off.

Five eternities (minutes) later, Jack heard Ianto's voice in his earpiece: "I'm on the ground. Untying myself...."

Jack held his breath when he felt the rope slacken, and released it in a sigh of relief when he felt two tugs signalling the all-clear. He tapped his earpiece and began to pull up the rope. "Are you safe?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Good, then stay exactly where you are! No more falling down hills for at least five minutes."

"Yes, Sir."

Jack laughed, retied himself, secured himself to the anchor, and abseiled down, revelling in the barely-controlled fall.

"That was fun!" He grinned as he bounced onto the ground and touched the appropriate buttons on his wrist strap. He shone his torch up the cliff and watched the anchor sail out over the ledge and fall back towards him. "Love those things!"

"I love whoever found it and turned it in," quipped Ianto.

Jack coiled the rope and squashed it and the anchor back into the small pocket inside his coat, pulling Ianto in for a careful hug. "So do I, right about now." He kissed Ianto's forehead and tasted blood. He decided not to notice until he could do something about it.

"Jack...could you reset my shoulder?"

"Sure. Should I kiss you now, or afterwards?"

"Now. I'll probably kill you after."

Jack laughed and kissed Ianto lightly, then gently, lingering a little longer than he'd intended. "You ready?" he asked, softly.

"Yeah," said Ianto.

As Ianto screamed—longer than the last time—and swore (which he hadn't, the last time), Jack found himself aching more than he had the last time. And then he was catching Ianto as he collapsed, panting in a cold sweat. "Shh...Ianto?"

"Ribs...screaming hurts."

"I know. We've got to find shelter." Jack reached carefully for the scanner in Ianto's coat pocket, flipping through the options until he found the GPS tracking system while Ianto recovered against him. Jack grimaced when he discovered where they'd just been and how far up they still were. And then, as he made a slow sweep with the device, he felt a grin warm his face. "And I know just the place!"

"Let me guess...we're walking to Betws y Coed?"

"No, it's much closer than that!"

Ianto looked at him in horror. "Not back to Darla's?"

"God, no!"

"Ja-CK."

Jack snickered. "We're right on top of it, and it belongs to a friend."

* * *

  
Jack had expected the perception filter. He hadn't expected the car. This was going to be awkward, but at this point, soaked in sleet with Ianto near collapse and his own digits exploring the possibilities of frostbite, he really didn't care. He knocked on the door, realising that he should have used the doorbell when he saw blood on his knuckles. "Great," he muttered, adjusting his arm around Ianto. He looked at the corresponding rope burns and sighed just as the door opened. "Hi, there!"

Ianto groaned at the bright light.

"Bloody hell! What happened to you?" Rhys reached to help support Ianto across the threshold.

"Cracked ribs," warned Jack. "Left side. Shoulder went again, too."

Rhys took Ianto's arm.

"Bruised ribs," muttered Ianto.

"Whatever," said Jack, with more concern than he'd hoped to show. But as he looked across Ianto's head to Rhys, he mouthed, "Cracked!" and nodded, knowingly.

"Gwen!" called Rhys up the stairs. He turned back towards Ianto and Jack. "Look, you're both fucking soaked and bleeding, so give me your coats...."

Jack divested himself instantly of his and handed it to Rhys, then started to peel off Ianto's.

"Jesus Christ! What've you got in here, bodies?"

"Just don't touch the pockets. Any of them."

"What is—oh, god! What are you doing here, Jack?"

"Nice to see you, too, Gwen," said Jack, gently prying Ianto's hand from clutching his new coat closed.

"Cold," said Ianto.

"Yes, and there's enough ice water in this thing to make you freeze to death, so let me take it off and give it to Rhys so it can dry out and you can get warm."

"God, Ianto! What happened to you, sweetheart?" asked Gwen, laying her hand on both of theirs. "You're chilled to the bone!"

"Long story," said Jack. "We'll tell you when we're warm."

"He's got a couple of cracked ribs and his shoulder went out, as well," added Rhys.

"Bruised," murmured Ianto.

"Right," said Gwen. "Rhys, love, start the shower in the guest bath—lukewarm, mind—and then these two are going in there to clean up and put on something dry."

"Why not just use the sauna to warm them up?" asked Rhys.

"Because that's too hot, and they could die of shock. And Ianto would stay dead," she added, with an accusatory look at Jack.

"Hey! What are you looking at me for? What'd I do?"

Rhys squeezed his shoulder and muttered, "Good luck, mate!" into Jack's ear before heading for the guest bath.

Gwen took Jack's left hand firmly in hers and examined it. "Rope burns on the palm, and I bet you have a matching set on the other hand, right?"

"Yeah, well...."

"And Ianto's got cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder. From the look of it, you've been out climbing Crib Goch in the middle of the night in December and a high wind came up and blew at least Ianto off the Pinnacles." Gwen fixed Jack with her gaze as only she could do.

Jack winced. "Well, it—"

"You could have called for help, Jack!"

"And I told you we'd handle it!" Jack seethed.

"You call this handling it? Do you know how many people are injured and killed on Snowdon every year, Jack?"

"Not that many," said Jack, feeling his control ebbing away, "right, Ianto?"

"Hey...hey!" said Rhys, hurrying up beside Gwen. "What are you shouting at him for? Can't you see he's been hurt?"

As if to illustrate Rhys's point, Jack's head began to throb.

"Ianto could've died out there at this time of year! 'Happy Christmas, Gwen, and oh, by the way, we've lost another one...'" Her voice broke.

Ianto reached for her. "I didn't die, Gwen." His voice was harsh with exhaustion and pain.

"I know, sweetheart. I'm sorry." She kissed his cheek, and he tried to hug her, and then Jack wrapped his remaining arm around her.

"Ow?" said Ianto.

"Sorry," said a tearful Gwen and a shaky Jack.

"I'm sorry, Jack," said Gwen. "It's just—I—"

"I know," said Jack, pulling her to him for a desperate hug and a kiss on the brow.

"Shower's ready," said Rhys. "Better get in there before he drops dead of exhaustion."

"Rhys!"

Jack couldn't help a smirk as Gwen hissed the name in two syllables.

"Sorry," said Rhys. "There's towels and robes for you both, and mind the floor. It's a bit slippery."

* * *

  
Jack washed Ianto carefully, mindful of bruises, cuts, scrapes and dislocation. "Ouch!" he said, at exactly the same time as Ianto, when he touched the damaged hip, probing as gently as he could.

"Jack," hissed Ianto, clutching at his shoulders and trying to arch away from his hand.

Jack wrapped his arms gently around him, careful to avoid the damaged ribs. "I'm sorry. Shh...." Even under the warming effects of the water—which felt scalding hot after their adventures—Ianto's skin felt cool to the touch. "The good news is that it isn't dislocated."

"Yeah, well I can walk." Despite the quip—or maybe because of it—Ianto began to relax in his arms.

"The bad news is you've got a nasty hip pointer, and those things can hurt for weeks."

"Perfect."

Jack kissed Ianto's cheek.

"Ow."

"You're not even bruised there!"

"You're on my foot."

"Oh. Oops..."

"Twat."

"Hey! You ready for some warmer water?" Jack reached before Ianto could answer, and raised the water temperature.

"Aaaagh! Bastard!" Then, as the spasms calmed, "Ohhhh...bastard...."

Jack held him gently close, running a hand up his spine to check for pain or damage.

Ianto purred.

"Feels good?"

"Mmm...."

Jack ran his fingers up Ianto's neck and through his hair to cup the back of his head, checking.... He SO didn't groan at the combined relief of water warming fingers he'd forgotten how to feel and the comforting weight of Ianto relaxing in his arms. And then he realised that he had.

"Alright, love?" mumbled Ianto.

Jack's heart rose and sank, rose again and sank lower before it finally placed itself at that annoying angle it always seemed to choose for such moments. "I'll do for now," he said at last.

Ianto lifted his head to look at him, sleepy and confused. "What's wrong?"

Jack's heart thumped against his ribs in protest. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"Something hurts, doesn't it?" Ianto began to run his hands over Jack's back and sides, stroking, checking—until Jack stopped him, looking anywhere but at him.

"Yes, but it's not that bad. I'll be all right." He forced himself at last to look into Ianto's eyes, and then he kissed his temple—hid his face—as warming arms wrapped him in an embrace tense with exhaustion. "Let's get out of here," said Jack, his voice unsteady against Ianto's skin.

As they pulled apart, Ianto kissed Jack briefly, gently. "You going to sleep tonight?"

"I hope so." Jack turned off the water and reached for a towel and handed it to Ianto. "I'd dry you off, but you're not going to want me touching your ribs." It was a poor excuse, he knew. "Let me know if you need any help."

"Thanks," said Ianto, as Jack bolted from the tub.

Jack dried himself quickly, wincing when he pressed too hard into the contusion he'd sustained in the SUV. It was taking him longer to heal from such minor injuries, and he made yet another mental note to investigate that when they got a new doctor. He reached for one of the robes and threw it on, fidgeting when it was just a little tight across the chest. "You all right in there?"

"I, um, can't seem to figure out how to get out." Ianto sounded practically drunk.

Jack looked over to see his all-knowing, über-competent fusspot slack-jawed, eyelids at half-mast, utterly bedraggled—the very picture of 'wet as a drowned rat'—and felt something inside swell in a funny way. He grinned from deep within and held out his arms. "Come here, you! Okay, left foot first...."

As Jack dried him, Ianto peered at his robe. "Why are you wearing mine?"

"Huh?"

"Why are you wearing my robe?"

Jack squinted down at his left breast and spotted the monogram 'IJ'. He reached for the other robe and saw 'CJH' embroidered on it. "What's the 'C' for?"

Ianto rolled his eyes. "'Captain'?"

"Oh. Yeah!" Jack grinned and began to untie the robe he was wearing.

"That one's all wet."

"It is not! I dried myself off.... Oh, all right...." He helped Ianto into the dry robe.

Ianto dragged the robe around himself. "Sloppy fit."

"You're about to collapse in a heap, and you're fussing about how a bathrobe fits?" Jack folded his arms and felt the fabric strain across the back.

"Let's switch."

"Good plan."

* * *

  
Jack awoke with a start and a panicked gulp of air. The terror on the edge of his sleep vanished before he could reach it, leaving only the taste of clay in his mouth. _Better than usual, these days,_ he thought. _At least there aren't any maggots._

Next to him, Ianto moaned slightly in his sleep, a pained look on his face. Jack hesitated, then leant over and kissed him very gently. He didn't let himself think of how close he'd come to losing him the night before. "Shh...." Little more than a susurrus through bed-rumpled hair, but it seemed to soothe Ianto—to make his skin relax into smooth, untroubled planes. He looked so young like that. So young, and so utterly mortal.

Bitterness welled up inside, so acrid and heavy that he nearly gagged, and he fled for his coat, the great outdoors, the alien threat that could keep him separate and safe. He contemplated running back to Snowdon and finding himself in a fight to the death at its summit—or one of its summits, if he understood the GPS correctly—with a ten-foot tall creature made out of shag carpet and claws. Much like one of the campy monsters on television in the sixties, he thought. He imagined the shared plunge—the exhilaration of falling, the pain of landing, the painful jolts of death and resurrection. _Yes, yes, yes,_ his mind chanted. That's what he needed as he'd never needed anything else.

He'd reached his coat and was putting it on, when Rhys came in the door.

"Oi! Where d'you think you're going?"

"Out," said Jack, barely able to breathe for the need of escape.

"Oh, no you're not," said Rhys, stomping snow out of his boots.

"Oh, yes I am," countered Jack. "There's a ten-foot alien out there that may or may not be eating sheep like candy and can definitely disappear into thin air, and I'm the one to find it."

"No, you're not," said Rhys, putting a hand in the middle of Jack's chest. "First off, you're starkers under that coat, in case you hadn't noticed."

Jack hadn't. He glared at Rhys and turned away to look for his clothes.

Rhys chuckled. "Wales can afford to lose a few sheep, you know. It would equalize things a bit, right?"

"What if it decides it likes the taste of people better?" Jack picked up each coat on the rack to no avail.

"I doubt it'll do that. We taste pretty bad, according to all the nature docos I've seen."

Jack started picking up sofa cushions and rummaging in cupboards. "Where the fuck are my clothes?"

"D'you know, in all the time I've known you, that's the first time I've heard you swear?"

"Sorry," said Jack, conversationally. "How about, 'Could you please tell me where to find my clothes before I kill you?'"

"You won't kill me," said Rhys, quietly.

"Oh yeah?" Jack crossed the room in three strides and stood face to face with Rhys. "Care to test that hypothesis?"

"I've got myself out of a scrape or two in my time," said Rhys, slowly, returning Jack's stare. "Besides, Gwen would hate you forever if you did that. But worse, she'd hate me forever if I gave you your clothes."

Jack huffed, a cross between a laugh and an enraged snort.

"Besides, you should go after a threat like that because you're scared of losing the world you're in, not because you're scared of living in it."

Jack found he couldn't move.

"I'll tell you what. You have breakfast, and then if you still want to go out there, I'll get your clothes."

"Coffee'll be great," said Jack, tightly.

"Yes, it will, once you've had my Welsh breakfast and Gwen's tea. We'll have to wait for coffee until Ianto can make it. Gwen won't allow anyone else to touch the coffee machine as long as he's around. Said it was 'part of the agreement' or something."

"That was a joke!" howled Jack.

A groan from the guestroom filtered through the noise in his head. "Shut up, Jack...."

It was so matter-of-fact, and so clearly uttered in sleep, and Jack realized belatedly that he was laughing and crying at the same time.

"Come on," said Rhys, taking his arm and guiding him to the kitchen table. "Sit down and try to stay out of the way while I make breakfast."

Jack sat and shook, wishing more than ever that he could just jump out of his own skin and take a lap around the universe.

Rhys stood next to him and squeezed his shoulder. "It's no use going after anything in that state," he said quietly. "I remember once when I was small. Me and my sister were fighting, and the pet rabbit got out. Sweetest thing in the world, she was. Anyway, Tad tripped over her and fell, and got so angry that he said she'd be in the pot for supper that night if I didn't catch her." He rubbed Jack's shoulder. "I went out of my mind. Forgot all about my sister and went to save the rabbit. Only I was so upset, I was shouting and tripping over everything, and then I was yelling at her to come to me. Screaming at the top of my lungs. I finally had to go into the cupboard after her." He shook his head.

"You didn't save her?"

"Oh, I saved her. My sister spent the next hour bandaging my hand. Couldn't talk to the rabbit for weeks." He clapped Jack on the shoulder. "So. How do you like your eggs?"

"Scrambled. With a good dose of shouting."

Jack turned to see Gwen in her own robe, rubbing her eyes and looking as though she'd had five hours too little sleep. "I hate scrambled eggs!"

"Scrambled," repeated Gwen. "Hard." She sat down at the table across from Jack and rubbed her face.

"Is she always this grumpy in the morning?"

"Only when she can't sleep." Rhys left his bacon pan for a moment to drop a kiss into Gwen's hair.

She turned and hugged Rhys. "Sorry, love."

Jack swallowed his ache. "So. What's with the robes?"

"We knew you'd all be here at some point, so we wanted to be prepared. And to say thank you for doing what you did." Gwen rubbed at her neck. "You know...the perception filters."

"And the official records," added Jack.

"And the records," said Gwen, testily. Then she looked up, and Jack could see every last bit of exhaustion and worry on her face. "How's Ianto?"

Jack huffed. "Well, he told me to shut up in his sleep, so I think he'll be fine."

"How can you be so flip about this? About him?"

Her words, Jack expected. The dull resignation in her voice chilled him to the marrow. He took a long time to open his lungs, then his mouth—

"He's not being flip, love," said Rhys. "He's just—"

Jack looked at him, hoping to convey stern admonition instead of the desperation he felt.

"—anxious to catch the alien and save the world." Rhys gave him a sympathetic look from behind Gwen's back.

"Then maybe he could go off and do it quietly," said Ianto. He walked unsteadily over to Gwen and leant down with some effort to kiss her cheek. "Thanks for letting us stay last night."

"No problem," said Gwen, with a game smile.

Ianto waved at Rhys and made his way round the table to drop Jack's clothes into his lap. "They were in the wardrobe, twpsyn." Then he bent to kiss Jack's forehead. "Thanks for getting me off the cliff." He sat, pulling his chair closer than Jack had expected.

Jack reached out to rub the back of Ianto's neck.

Ianto frowned. "Did I go soppy last night? I had this dream...."

"Well, you were a bit the worse for wear," said Rhys, "but I wouldn't call it soppy. More soggy." He grinned.

"Yeah, well, when Jack said we were right on top of this place, I thought he meant it was less than a mile away."

"You made him walk a mile last night? In that horrible sleet?"

Jack glared at Gwen.

"It was either that or die on a ledge," said Ianto.

"Gwen, love, would you come make the tea?"

Gwen's lips went thin as she bit down visibly on whatever she'd been about to say. She shook her head at Jack, daggers in her eyes, and forced herself to do as Rhys asked. She also shrugged off his hand and gave him a stifled growl as she shook her head again.

Rhys made a gesture of surrender before turning again to the bacon.

Jack felt a tentative arm making its way around his waist. He blinked and looked at Ianto, who was looking back at him with equal concern.

Ianto fingered the bruise on his forehead. "Still hasn't healed," he said, his hand lingering on Jack's face.

Jack lost himself in Ianto's kiss.

"So," said Rhys, purposefully. "Why don't you tell us a bit more about this alien?"

* * *

  
"All right," said Gwen, as she sipped at her third cup of tea, this time at the computer array in the attic. "So we've got an alien that Jack may or may not recognize that's leaving a trail of lily bulbs, can scale a vertical cliff in no-time flat, and disappears at random intervals."

"And seems a bit depressed," said Ianto.

"Don't forget the sheep eating," Jack interjected.

"That hasn't been verified," said Ianto.

Gwen smiled at him. "You'll make a good detective, yet." She took Tosh's scanner and plugged it in to the array. "Now, what did this...Darla say it said?"

"Something about garnets," said Jack.

Gwen and Rhys looked at him.

"What? I like jewellery."

"It's true," said Ianto, paging through the options until he found the one he wanted.

"Oh?" said the Williamses.

"About the garnets, I mean. Bunch of gibberish about—here we are."

The appropriate spot on the video flashed up and Ianto turned up the volume:

_"...sounded like it was saying, 'Our Ellen's crib's got David's garnets, and Llewelyn's garnets are with Trevor in a crib of thistles.' See? I told you it didn't make sense!"_

"It really doesn't make any sense," said Gwen.

"Run it back a bit more," said Jack. "Maybe we missed something."

"Didn't really make much more sense at the time, Jack," said Ianto.

"Humour me."

Gwen ran the video back a little more:

_"...kept talking about garnets. It didn't make any sense...."_

"Can you remember exactly what it said?"

"It was all kind of garbled, sort of like English, but sort of not. Like, as if its mouth wasn't meant to move that way, or something."

"Anything you can tell us would be helpful, even if you think it sounds crazy."

"Well, it sounded like it was saying, 'Our Ellen's crib's got David's garnets, and Llewelyn's garnets are with Trevor in a crib of thistles.' See? I told you it didn't make sense!"

"It still doesn't make any sense," said Jack. "I know some species that make a big deal over garnets, but none of them is over eight feet tall—well, except for the Froop, and they're duodecapedal and have only one hair on their bodies, and that's—"

"—way TMI," finished Gwen.

_"...did you see where it went?"_

"Yeah, it said something about 'our river', and went off that way."

"Oh, I forgot about that bit," said Ianto.

"Run the whole thing back," said Jack. "Let's make a loop of everything she said it said."

"Just finishing that up now," said Gwen.

Jack turned to Rhys. "Can I pick 'em, or what?"

"Yeah," said Rhys, chewing absently on a hangnail as he stared at the screen.

"So how did you manage to build this place and get away with it?" asked Ianto. "I mean, a log cabin practically on the slopes of Snowdon isn't exactly something you can get permission for, is it?"

"Er, well," began Gwen, "it was Uncle Evan. He was always very handy, you see, and he wanted a sort of family retreat, so he just built one. Sort of."

"Which was completely illegal," said Jack.

"Well, it was when I came to you, but not when he built the original shack," said Gwen.

"This was a shack?"

"Uncle Evan always thought big but built small."

"So small that it stayed hidden in the woods until a year and a half ago when one Evan Cooper was found dead of a heart attack by a stray rock climber who tripped over him. Sorry, Gwen."

"We'd always loved the place when I was little, and I couldn't stand the thought of it being demolished—"

"So she came to me and asked if I could help her keep it," said Jack.

"And you told her that she could if she turned it into a clone of Torchwood," said Ianto.

"Not a clone! More like a retreat. I figured after Canary Wharf, we needed a place to go if Torchwood Three was ever attacked. Someplace nobody else knew about."

"Not even me," said Ianto, unable to hide the accusation in his voice.

"That was right after what happened with Lisa," said Jack, gently.

Ianto pulled in a breath. "You could've told me later."

"To be honest, I forgot about this place before we got...more involved. I didn't remember it until last night. I am sorry, though."

Ianto nodded, but Jack couldn't read him.

"Gwen," said Rhys. He'd moved closer to the computer while they were talking, and had the headphones on. Jack noticed that he was playing the video loop repeatedly. "Would you mind repeating what she's saying?"

"If you want." She got a mischievous look in her eye and repeated it all back in an exaggerated Bronx accent that made them all cringe.

"No, not like that," said Rhys. "I want to hear it in a proper Welsh accent."

Gwen sighed. "Our Ellen's crib's got David's garnets, and Llewelyn's garnets are with Trevor in a crib of thistles."

Rhys banged his fist on his chair. "Bingo!"

"I really don't understand, love," said Gwen.

"Look, she said it was like English, only not, right? Like its mouth wasn't meant to work that way. Think of all the tourists we see mangling Welsh, yeah? And then imagine a Yank—sorry, Jack—interpreting that."

"So?"

"I needed to hear it in a Welsh accent to remove that layer of mangling, as it were. Can we pull up a map of Snowdonia on this thing?"

Ianto obliged, quizzically.

"Now—oh, wow, that's a brilliant map! Anyway, look here. 'Our Ellen' is really Yr Elen." He pointed to a mountain on the map. "'David's garnets' is Carnedd Dafydd." He pointed out another. "'Llewelyn's garnets' is Carnedd Llewelyn."

Jack sat up. "What about the rest of it?" he asked.

"Our Ellen's crib's got David's garnets, and Llewelyn's garnets are with Trevor in a crib of thistles," muttered Rhys, very fast.

"Crib Goch!" shouted Gwen.

"Yes! Yr Elen, Crib Goch, Carnedd Dafydd, Carnedd Llewelyn...Trevor? Crib of thistles...Crib-y-Ddysgl! But what's Trevor when it's at home?" He looked through the map. "Tryfan!" He turned around. "It's not a sentence at all."

"It's an itinerary," said Jack.

"What about 'our river?'" asked Gwen.

"Our river, our river, our river...Yr Wyddfa."

"Snowdon," said Gwen and Ianto.

Jack jumped up. "Well, kids, thanks to Rhys, our man of the hour, we've got a place to start. Ianto, Gwen, you're staying here. Rhys, you're with me."

"Oh, no he's not!" asserted Gwen, at exactly the same time as, "I'm coming, too," came from Ianto.

"I'm trained for this, Jack!" said Gwen. "Rhys isn't, so I'm going."

"And I spent all that time freezing on Snowdon last night, so I'm going, too."

"Look," said Jack. "You're...broken, and you're completely exhausted. And besides, Rhys solved the problem, so he gets to go."

"Rhys doesn't like being talked about as though he's not here," said Rhys.

"I've been exhausted before," said Gwen.

"I'm not broken," said Ianto. "Just bruised."

"All right, all right, I'm sorry!" said Jack, running his hand back through his hair in order to avoid hitting anyone. "Look, I need a Welsh speaker who got a good night's sleep last night and didn't fall down a cliff."

Gwen and Ianto squirmed, glared and fell silent.

Rhys grinned in triumph, and then turned a bit green. "Well. I guess I'm elected, then."

Jack clapped him on the back and thundered down the stairs.

Gwen hurtled after him. "What about tracking it, Jack?"

"What about it?"

"You said yourself you never got a good signal on it."

"Ianto saw it," shrugged Jack. "He's gotta have its signal on the scanner."

"Um, no, I don't," said Ianto, making his way stiffly after Rhys.

"What?!"

"I was clinging to a cliff on a ledge in a snowstorm. I had to hit my ear against it just to get through to you."

"Ianto!"

"Jack!" admonished Gwen.

"Yeah, well, he should've—"

There was an ear-piercing whistle, and everyone turned toward Rhys.

"About bloody time," he said.

"WHAT!" bellowed Jack.

Rhys pointed to the coat rack. "Your coat's glowing."

"That never happens," said Ianto, as he scanned the pink bulge of Jack's coat pocket.

Gwen pulled out her gun.

"It's just lily bulbs," said Jack, thoroughly unconvinced.

And then there was a roar of wind outside and a huge arm smashing through the door.

"Jesus!" shouted Gwen.

"BLAME OUR PLANT," roared the wind in a thick, barely comprehensible drawl. Jack made the wild guess that the speaker actually belonged to the arm—and the huge body bending slowly down.

"What plant do you mean?" yelled Jack.

The body squatted abruptly, revealing a startlingly readable face near the top of the doorframe. "Blame our plant," said the creature, plaintively.

"I see what Darla meant about its mouth," said Jack, absently. Why was the pit of his stomach flipping around that way?

"I don't understand," said Gwen. "Blame our plant?"

"Blaaaymiiire plaaant," said the creature.

"I think it thinks we're a bit stupid," said Ianto.

"Not 'blame our plant,'" said Rhys, "'ble mae'r plant! It's asking where the children are."

Jack watched Gwen and Ianto turn pale. "Whose children?" he asked, voicing the concern in their faces.

"I don't know," said Rhys. "Yours? Its own? It's an open question. Though I don't really see how it could've mislaid children that big."

"Bleee maaaae'r plaaaant?" said the creature again, tilting its head as if trying to peer into the room.

"Rhys! Why don't you talk to it?" hissed Gwen.

"Arhoswch funud, os gwelwch yn dda," said Rhys to the creature, as calmly as he could. He turned back towards Gwen, hissing back, "Oh, it's 'go talk to it, Rhys,' now is it? And you being trained in catching aliens, and all?"

"You're the only one who seems to be able to understand it!"

"And you call yourself a Welsh woman!" Rhys shook his head. "Jack, you're with me."

Jack nodded and grabbed his coat, shrugging at all the wide eyes fixed on him. "I just love a man who takes charge!"

One set of eyes widened even more, the other narrowed to dangerous blue slits. Jack giggled and followed Rhys out into the snow.

Instantly, the creature plucked the coat from Jack's shoulders, causing him to yelp in pain as both arms nearly came out of their sockets.

"Ydych chi'n byw yma?" asked Rhys, ignoring Jack's distress.

Jack recognized just enough Welsh to understand that, and gathered from the windy wail from the visitor's mouth that it did not, in fact, live here. Either that, or it was so distressed by what it was finding in the glowing coat pocket that it was going to blow itself or someone else up.

"O le i chi'n dod?"

"Gaaaaerrrrrdydd!"

Now that, Jack did understand. "Then how come we haven't seen you around?" he demanded.

Rhys translated, but the creature didn't answer. Instead, it had pulled out all the lily bulbs and was now cradling them in its hand and crooning softly at them in garbled Welsh.

After a few moments, Rhys started speaking softly: "She says she's female, and she's from—o le i chi'n dod?" he repeated.

"Woahrahhnnnnaaahhhhh."

Both Jack and Rhys clapped their hands over their ears at the overtones that seemed to pierce the very fabric of rock and air.

"Will she mind if we just way 'Warana'?" asked Jack.

"WOAH RAWHH NAAHH!"

Jack's nose started to bleed and Rhys fell to the ground, writhing.

"Hey, heeyyy...," soothed Jack. He put a finger to his mouth and made a shushing noise as he knelt slowly by Rhys. "We're friends," he cajoled, never taking his eyes from her.

She cocked her head at him. "Ffrind?"

"Yeah. Friends." He made a gesture between them. "You and I."

"Ffrrrind."

"What's your name, friend? Er...frind?" asked Jack, his teeth chattering, a little.

The creature cocked her head at him.

Jack pointed to himself. "Jack." He pointed to her.

"Anngghaaaaarrrrrad," she said.

"Ah! Beautiful name, Angharad," said Jack with all his quietest charm.

She looked worriedly at Rhys as Jack stroked his arm.

"Are you all right?" asked Jack of Rhys, quietly.

"My ears are bleeding a bit, but yeah. Best not talk about her home world, Jack."

"Wyt ti'nn iaawwwn?" asked Angharad.

Rhys laughed. "He just asked me that! Da iawn, diolch," he said, even though it clearly wasn't quite true.

She spared him a sympathetic glance then turned back to her hand and continued to croon.

"She says her name isn't really Angharad," said Rhys after a moment, "but that if she told us her real name, we'd probably die. She's been here...a lot. I can't tell what numbering system she's using from her accent—plus it's garbled, anyway—but it sounds like either twelve hundred or two thousand times. Says her ship crashed in Cardiff Bay fifty years ago, and she was...paralysed? Some sort of problem with freezing.... She couldn't get here to plant her—I think she's saying her babies and their food—till now. Dw i ddim yn deall."

Angharad began to weep and the crooning became a soft keening.

"She says the children are almost all gone. She says the white ones have been eating them when they're babies. She says she has to put their vessels in high places so they'll stay safe. She says she sent the white ones away, but it was too late. And now the vessels are ready to open, and it's the wrong time. She says the children will die."

"What does she need to keep them safe?"

Rhys rattled off a string of syllables Jack didn't understand.

Angharad gave an otherworldly moan and began to mangle Welsh so fast and so loudly that Jack's head started spinning and when she gesticulated and touched his arm, he lost track of his consciousness.

* * *

  
The world was a haze. He was cold. Deeply cold as he had been only once since just before Rose had extracted him from time and space and fixed him at its centre. For a brief, terrible moment of world-shattering despair, he thought he was struggling once again to come back after Abaddon had sucked all possibility of light and warmth from space-time.

And then there were soft lips on his brow, a small, firm hand squeezing his own, lips on his cheek, a sort of moan from his right.... He opened his eyes to find Angharad gazing at him from the window with a sappy grimace on her enormous face.

"There you are," said Ianto's voice from just behind his left ear.

"Thank God," said Gwen from where he could just make her out hovering near his spleen.

"Shwww maaaae?" said Angharad.

"I'm fine," slurred Jack. "Iawn...."

Rhys's voice said something that might have been in Welsh.

"You're freezing," said Gwen, flatly.

"Not any more," said Jack. "I just can't feel anything."

"No, you really are," said Rhys from next to Angharad's face. "Freezing."

"Well, technically, you're actually thawing," said Ianto.

"Did I die?"

"Not quite," said Ianto.

"You went into cryogenic stasis when Angharad touched you," said Gwen.

"Maaaae'n dddddrrrrwwwwg da fi," said Angharad, her eyes turning purple.

"It's all right," said Jack. "Just stick me in the sauna and I'll be f-f-f-f-f-f—ohhhh...." He twisted, convulsing into a fetal position. "Ianto...."

Ianto caught him. "Gwen, you want to turn the blanket up a bit?"

"Done."

"You know, he may have a point about the sauna," said Rhys.

"What about thermal shock?" asked Ianto.

"Worst that can happen is he dies," said Rhys.

"Rhys!"

"Look, he'll just come back, yeah? Either way, he gets warmer faster. I'll fire it up."

"Thank you," Jack called out as Rhys was leaving, dismayed to hear instead an eerie moan that sounded a lot like something Angharad might have said.

"No problem, mate," said Rhys with a wave over his shoulder.

Jack felt the bed move out from under him, and realized that Ianto was getting in with him.

"Christ, you're cold! Gwen, you get in, too."

Jack thought he grinned into Ianto's thinly clad shoulder.

"All right, but I'm only stripping to my blouse. No sense in all of us freezing."

"Damn," murmured Jack.

"You're a filthy man, Jack," murmured Gwen against his ear as she wrapped her arms around him from behind.

"You kn-now it," he managed, before a convulsion of shivers seized him.

And then he was engulfed in arms and legs and blankets and warm breath on his face and kisses and insults, and everything felt so right that he had to weep or sleep.

He dreamt of the Snowbringer, of his mother's voice reading the traditional story the night before Gift Day.

* * *

  
The sauna was a place for sweating. At eighty degrees (Celsius), the Finns had found a way centuries ago to purge themselves of toxins, tensions and impure thoughts. Jack thought fondly of just how ancient a ritual sauna was for him. Nearly fifty centuries since its invention, and very little had changed. It made him feel connected to the world when he thought of all the people with whom he had or would share this joy that had long been viewed as sacred.

It was a place for healing. The benefits of sauna on everything from sore muscles to diabetes, even anorexia, had long been known, but the Finns had been onto something more profound that science had taken longer to discover, and that Jack didn't care to ponder. He was too busy wallowing in the glorious mental lassitude that had always saved him after a hard day. Or month. Or two-year stint in a single person craft with little but his hand to relieve the ache. After nearly two thousand years of deprivation, and especially after his experiences with Snowdon and Angharad, he was a bit surprised by how quickly his body adjusted to the heat. It was as though he'd merely forgone a week of it in order to deal with an especially bad Weevil problem.

Above all, though, the sauna was a place for silence. He welcomed Ianto, who knew (mostly) when to be quiet and when to speak up—knew it so well, in fact, that he had knocked Jack senseless right from the beginning, and not always in a comfortable way. But much as he adored Gwen and had come to love Rhys, for all their chatterbox ways, he was grateful that they had Christmas dinner to see to, and couldn't join them in his sacred, silent place. He let himself forget, for however short a time, about the lily bulbs now housed in the containment vault-cum-greenhouse that Gwen, Rhys and Ianto had modified to be a sort of nursery to—whatever was set to emerge from them until—whatever time it was all supposed to end.

He let himself drift away from the responsibility of Ianto's close escape, Tosh and Owen's deaths, John's addictions and pain. The wounds of Tosh and Owen were nowhere close to healed, despite what he needed to tell his team, but he'd found a way to decouple himself from them. He always did this, but this time, he managed it without trying to cast the blame for his part in it on anyone else. Because there was Gray, and hating him would be unbearable.

He'd shed more tears over Gray than he'd imagined possible. Now, he found himself in a place of nothingness, and that realisation hurt more than the tears. But even worse than that was the thought that he'd risked Ianto's life just by living in his own grey space. It could just as easily have been Gwen, of course, but she had someone who'd cheerfully kill him if anything happened to her, and would probably make sure that he stayed dead. Ianto had—Gwen. And probably Rhys, come to think of it. He sighed, letting go of some of the tension, and found himself laughing. Moistly.

"You alright, love?"

Jack wasn't sure what startled him most: what Ianto had just said, or the fact that he'd spoken. Then again, Ianto hadn't been the one to break the sacred silence. "That's the second time you've said that since we got here."

"I haven't said a word till now," said Ianto.

"I meant this cabin."

Ianto frowned. "I don't remember—oh."

Jack looked across the room at him.

Ianto fidgeted. "I'm Welsh," he said, with a shrug.

"I'd noticed."

"Look, it's just a thing we say. And I wasn't myself that night. No need to read anything into it."

"That's three escapes you've offered," noted Jack. "You only said it twice."

"I'll never ask you if you're all right again."

Jack laughed. "Come here."

"No."

Jack sighed and rose, crossing the two yards between them to sit next to Ianto. "I like it when you ask me that," he said. "Most people do, you know."

"You'd just rather I left off the third word."

"I'd just rather it weren't such a big deal," countered Jack.

"It's not! I just told you—"

"I meant to me," said Jack, a soothing hand on Ianto's slippery skin.

Ianto shivered. "I'll never get used to how cool skin feels in a sauna."

Jack saw through the cover and turned a baleful eye on him. "We have feelings for each other," he said. "There. I said it. And neither of us died."

"Food poisoning is a feeling, too," supplied Ianto.

"Eurrnghh!" said Jack over a reflexively clenched fist.

There was the tiniest whiff of a smirk investigating the corners of Ianto's mouth.

Jack smiled full on. "You're such a pain in the ass."

"But you're glad you hired me."

Jack opened his mouth, rethought his retort, reworked his rethink and blew out a breath on a defeated laugh. "You told me so," he said, shaking his head.

Ianto wound his left arm around Jack and winced. "If I recall correctly—"

"Which you always do," said Jack, filled with affection.

"—I had to tell you so quite often before you'd hire me."

"Not so much since, though," murmured Jack.

Ianto pulled Jack close and kissed him, moaning with something that sounded a lot more like pain than pleasure.

Jack drew back, gently. "How's your shoulder?"

"Making me pay for my job."

Jack made a sympathetic pout.

Ianto hit him.

Jack hugged him gently, bending to kiss his left shoulder.

Ianto stiffened. "Jack! My ribs...."

"Sorry." He pulled back. "Let me try something...."

Ianto's lips parted in inquiry just before Jack captured them.

Jack willed his life into the kiss, into Ianto. Surely what had worked on—what was her name? Carys! Surely that could work for Ianto, somehow—had worked once before when he'd been thrown halfway across the Hub and half drowned.

Ianto gasped into his mouth and moaned. And then he took a full breath against Jack's chest and whimpered in relief.

"How – how did you do that?" Ianto searched his eyes.

"How's the shoulder?"

"Better, for now. Jack...?"

"I...don't know. Sometimes it seems like I can—"

"Heal people with a kiss?"

"I guess." Jack looked down. "Looks like I can make some other things happen, as well," he said, with a pointed and fond leer.

Ianto followed his gaze, taking in the sight of burgeoning arousal in two laps. "Yes," he said, swallowing. "Yes, well, you could always make that happen, couldn't you?" He gazed into Jack's eyes with unguarded desire.

"I'm not the only one," said Jack, voice thick with need.

They dove for each other, devouring and pressing for all of five seconds before eighty degrees of heat asserted themselves, and they were panting for breath.

"I'm turning the heat down," said Jack. "If that's all right with you...?"

Ianto looked once more at Jack's groin. "Doesn't look like it from here."

"Wrong heat." Jack stole Ianto's mouth again, ripping himself away after four seconds to stare into hungry eyes. "I don't want either of us dying from heat stroke, and it's good etiquette to ask—whoa!"

Ianto toppled Jack onto his back on the bench and lowered the temperature by forty degrees. "I don't think anything's likely to kill me, just now, but since you're fussing...."

Jack grinned and then reached for him. "Pot, kettle." He stroked Ianto's face, tenderly. "You're on top."

"I can see that."

"I mean, you're staying there."

"So I can do all the work?" Ianto nudged Jack's cock with his own.

"So I can keep track of how hot you get and make you come before either of us dies." Jack thrust up against Ianto.

"Well, in that case," said Ianto, "let's see how little energy we can use and still come. Speaking of, too much talking."

Jack's eyes went wide and he felt himself grow harder as the room started to get cooler.

Ianto smiled and covered him, kissing him deeply as he reached under the bench.

_He didn't,_ thought Jack.

Ianto brought up a sachet of lube.

_He did! And at least this stuff'll be warm!_

Ianto broke the kiss and handed the sachet to Jack.

"Wait...you want...?"

"You, inside me, now."

"But—"

"Or I'll have to kill you."

"Sir, yes _Sir_," purred Jack.

Ianto straddled Jack's chest, reaching back to stroke Jack's cock.

Jack groaned and tore open the sachet, squeezing its contents onto his fingers. "Come here," he murmured, hands on Ianto's hips.

Ianto eased forward and let Jack take him in his mouth. "Ahhhh...."

It was expert and messy and wonderful preparing Ianto. A lazy caress, a teasing exploration, an intimate tasting with tongue and fingers slick with sweat and lube. Most of all, it was comfortable. He didn't have to worry about where to push, what to tease, how to excite. He knew all of that, knew every nerve ending and muscle twitch enough to let go and just _be_ and _do_ and _play_. He fluttered his tongue against the slit as he let his fingers explore inside and pulled Ianto close enough to take more length into his throat. The angle was awkward, the bench was hard, they were both drenched in sweat, and neither of them seemed to care. Jack hadn't had that with a partner in a long, long time.

And then Ianto groaned and pulled away. "Fuck, now!" He looked at Jack, searching quickly for permission.

"Hell, yes!" He steadied Ianto as he sank with a faraway expression onto his cock.

For a while, Jack just watched, rapt, moving as little as possible. Ianto rode him slowly, dripping with sweat, flushed with excitement, cock hard and dripping in a way that made Jack's ache and twitch in sympathy.

More than anything else, Jack drank in Ianto's rapture, letting himself notice—really _see_ for the first time—the naked bliss on his face. Had he always looked like that when Jack took him? He steadied his own breath and thrust gently, lazily into Ianto.

"God, yes!"

They set up a rhythm at once tantalizing and lazy, just enough to build towards climax without pushing physical limits. It occurred to Jack that skilled though they both were, they couldn't have managed this the previous year. They'd been too busy trying to outdo each other in ways subtle and not so because the trust hadn't been there. And now, he realised, for all the trust and affection that had built between them, they were still embroiled in a strange sort of competition to prove just how truly detached they really were from one another.

He grasped Ianto's hips, pulling them firmly against his own, and sat up, sharing a gasp at the abrupt change of angle, even as he locked his arms around Ianto.

"Fuck, Jack!"

"It's all right," said Jack. "It's all right. I'm still here. Take your time." He kissed Ianto's neck, his jaw, the corner of his mouth. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. Just caught me by surprise, is all." Ianto looked down into his eyes and stroked his hair away from his brow. "You?"

Jack possessed Ianto's back, spreading his hands over it, claiming as much of it as he could. "Never better."

Ianto kissed his forehead. "Let's make that fantasy come true, then."

Jack smiled and thrust. "Sounds good to me."

And then a movement through the door's window caught his eye, and he found himself staring straight into Rhys's widening eyes. Instantly harder than steel, he thrust up into Ianto, harder, harder—

Ianto threw his head back, moaning in bliss.

And all of a sudden, Rhys went to blazes. Nothing existed but Ianto. No excessive heat, no audience, no alien, no Torchwood, not even 'Jack'. Just Ianto, just—whoever he was, just this time, this place, this feeling. He pulled Ianto in against him and they slid together towards death—little or big, he didn't care. He knew Ianto came first. He didn't really know or care how much longer he took, and neither did Ianto, but Ianto was still hard when Jack cried out and came as hard as he ever had.

And then Ianto was panting and red and having trouble catching his breath, and Jack struggled through his post-coital urge to go into a coma and flicked off the heat. He half-lifted Ianto and pulled out, pulling him up into his arms and out of the sauna, into the shower, which he set to a normal body temperature.

Ianto resisted. "Can't take a cold shower," he managed, terrified.

"I would never do that to you," soothed Jack. He pulled Ianto's hand into the spray. "That all right?"

"I think so."

"Then come with me. I've got you."

Ianto sagged against Jack under the spray, holding on to keep from slipping.

"I'm going to reduce the water temperature just a little," said Jack. "Just once."

Ianto nodded, and then shuddered at the change.

Jack washed them both as Ianto recovered his breath and his normal colouring. "You all right, love?"

Ianto blinked at him in surprise. "You...never do that," he pointed out.

"I've been known to, on occasion," said Jack. He grinned. "Especially after great sex."

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Sop!"

"Could be. Mr. Pot."

* * *

  
"So she's sort of a guardian," said Jack, poring over the transcripts of the day's work.

"Yes," said Gwen. "Apparently, so are the other yeti on this planet. The dirty ones."

"Dirty ones?"

"Well, that's how Angharad described them. They got assigned to Earth to make sure that the dinosaurs didn't go extinct, but then they got fed up with management and went native. Apparently, they don't know how to use technology, anymore. Or bathe."

"So if the rest of them were assigned to the dinosaurs, then was Angharad assigned to rare plants?"

"It looks that way," said Gwen, slowly, "but I'm not so sure. Rhys says she talked some sort of gibberish about the children and the food, but it's not at all clear what the children are. And I've never heard of Snowdon lily bulbs glowing pink."

Jack scrolled down the computer screen. "It says something here about making things better—"

"Jack!" Ianto burst through the door, that irrepressible gleam back in his eyes. "They've hatched!"

Jack and Gwen looked at each other and bolted after Ianto for the basement containment unit.

Inside the alpine garden they'd cobbled together under Angharad's watchful gaze (albeit via webcam and mobile hooked into a loudspeaker), the lily bulbs had opened, each producing one perfect Snowdon lily festooned with colourful beetles.

"What the hell are those?" asked Jack.

"Those are Snowdon beetles," said Ianto.

Jack and Gwen stared at him.

"Studied them in science class when I was a kid. And I know everything."

"Then why don't you tell us all about them?" said Jack.

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Highly endangered in the UK, genetically distinct subspecies only found on Mount Snowdon, eaten before they hatch by sheep grazing where the eggs are laid. Plus Angharad told us while you were frozen that they weren't originally from here."

"So maybe by 'making things better', Angharad meant that her people engineered some of them to adapt better to this environment?"

"That would make sense," said Gwen. "Apparently, their whole culture revolves around saving as many species round the universe as possible."

"Then why did she send away 'the white ones'? I mean, I presume she meant sheep?"

"Sheep aren't exactly endangered in Wales, Jack," laughed Gwen.

"Maybe she's having them redesigned so they don't eat Snowdon lilies or beetles," suggested Ianto. "She told Rhys she hadn't harmed them."

"Oi, you lot!" called Rhys. "Dinner's ready!"

"Thanks, love, we'll be right up," called Gwen.

"It's Christmas dinner, and you can bloody well come up now!"

"Can't really argue with that," said Ianto.

"No, I don't think we should," said Gwen.

Jack bit his nail in thought and followed the others.

He was startled out of his reverie by Rhys. "All right, out with it! What's got you so quiet all of a sudden?"

Jack pulled himself back to the present. "There's a story...um, how much has Gwen told you about me?"

"You're her boss, you'll shag anything that moves," he eyed Ianto briefly, "you can't die and you're from the future. Of course, she didn't tell me the first three things until after I'd seen them all for myself."

Ianto glared at Jack.

"What?!"

Ianto gave him a 'we'll talk later' look, and Jack's heart sank.

"Okay, so, in about fifty years, someone's going to write a short story called _The Snowbringer_ about a huge, mammal-like alien that freezes everything it touches and saves Earth from the damage we humans cause. And that story is going to replace the current Christmas myth of Santa Claus and reindeer, and everyone on Earth from the twenty-ninth century on is going to grow up with that story being read to them the night before Gift Day." He rolled his eyes. "Happy, now?"

Ianto took his hand and squeezed it, wordlessly, twining his fingers through Jack's.

"That's more than you've ever told us about your past when it wasn't a life or death situation," said Gwen.

"So do you think Angharad might be the Snowbringer?" said Rhys.

"I don't know," said Jack.

"It does fit," said Ianto.

"So did Santa Claus, once," said Jack, a bit wistfully.

Ianto squeezed his hand again and leaned slightly towards him.

"So. Rhys, Gwen...." Jack raised his glass. "Thank you for putting us up and feeding us this Christmas."

"Hear, hear," said Ianto. He and Jack took a drink of their wine.

"I only wish Tosh and Owen could've been here," said Gwen.

"To absent friends," said Jack.

"Hear, hear," said the others, and drank.

"Let's not forget Angharad," said Rhys. "To future friends!"

"Hear, hear."

Ianto raised his glass after a long moment. "To saving what we love."

"Hear, hear," said Gwen, then Rhys, then Jack, and they all clinked glasses.

Later, as Gwen and Rhys finished clearing up, Ianto pulled Jack aside. "You saw the Snowbringer, didn't you?"

Jack's heart leapt into his throat. "How did you know?" he murmured.

"I know _you_. And when you think you've seen something before, you always have."

Jack sighed and looked up. "I was five. Gray was a month old, and I was so enthralled! One night, Mum and Dad were walking on the beach and I was alone in the nursery with him, and he was crying, so I climbed up into the crib and started talking to him." He puffed out a breath of air and blinked back tears. "I tried everything I could, but he kept crying. I tried acting out the story of Ewan and Zerifex—swords and sorcery for the fifty-first century, only it's blasters and particle physics and the boy gets the alien—and I was so into it that when Mum and Dad opened the door, I tripped and fell right onto Gray. They were yelling at me to get out, but I'd hit my head on the way down. I couldn't move. And then, there was this cool breeze through the room and everything got very quiet except for this sort of musical wail. And I looked out the window, and there was this shape sort of loping across the sand. And everything was all right."

"Did you see it again?" Ianto was very close, very quiet.

Jack couldn't bear the pain in his chest. "Yes. That first Gift Day after I lost Gray and Dad was killed. I was alone in my room, crying so hard I couldn't breathe. Mum couldn't talk to me and my friends were gone. I'd never felt so alone. And then there was a voice. I thought it was the wind but then it seemed to be saying something. I went to close the window, because it was suddenly so cold, and I saw it again. Looking at me. And I stopped crying." Jack swiped hard at his eyes. "I ran away and joined the Time Agency the next day."

Ianto reached up and touched Jack's forehead. "Your wound's healed."

Startled, Jack reached up to feel as Ianto's hand dropped away. "I'd forgotten about that."

"Happened while you were frozen. Actually, it happened before we got you inside."

"Must have been when Angharad touched me." He shook his head. "Can you imagine having to live your life without being able to touch anyone?"

Ianto's eyes drifted up and he gazed into Jack's—into _Jack_—long and knowing. And then, he turned and walked away towards the coat rack and picked up his new coat.

Jack wasn't sure how to breathe. "Ianto..." But it came out softer than a whisper.

Ianto pulled the windbreaker out of the coat and then pulled a small box from its pocket. With deliberate slowness (and Jack thought he saw him tremble, a little), Ianto re-hung the coats separately and came back to Jack. Without a word, he offered Jack the box.

As much as Jack had feared Ianto leaving before, this was infinitely more terrifying.

Without straying from Jack's eyes for a second, Ianto picked up his hand and planted the box in it firmly, wrapping Jack's fingers around it before stepping back and awaiting his response.

Jack couldn't begin to muster a fake smile, so he focused instead on remembering the laughter they'd had, so he could get through this and figure out how to let Ianto down gently, make a clean break and take the necessary time to stuff the overwhelming grief into its appropriate abyss.

He opened the box and found—a key? "Ianto, I already have a key to your flat!"

"I know."

"Well, then...?"

"This is a key to your room."

"I already have a key to my room! Sort of...if you count the fact that it's a hatch—"

"Not your hole, you oik! God, I knew this was a stupid idea...."

And then Jack noticed that Ianto's hands were really trembling. "Why don't you explain it to me and let me be the judge?"

"Look...after what happened with Gray, it just seems that the Hub isn't quite as safe as it once was. And you've been spending a bit more time at mine, lately—not that that's saying much. So I cleared out the spare room last week and had a new lock put in."

Jack looked at him, none too steady on his own legs.

"I know you need your privacy. Someplace safe from everything, including me. This was the best I could do."

"It's a brilliant idea," said Jack through a throat so tight his voice couldn't escape.

"Come here," said Ianto.

Jack couldn't move.

"Come here, love." Ianto took him in his arms as Angharad's voice drifted from somewhere near Llyn Llydaw. "Happy Gift Day, Jack."

"Happy Christmas, Ianto."

**Author's Note:**

> **Translations:**
> 
> Ble mae'r plant? = Where are the children?  
> Arhoswch funud os gwelwch yn dda = Wait a minute please.  
> Ydych chi'n byw yma = Do you live here?   
> O le i chi'n dod? = Where are you from?  
> "Gaaaaerrrrrdydd!" = Gaerdydd (soft mutation) or Caerdydd = Cardiff.  
> Ffrind = Friend.  
> "Wyt ti'nn iaawwwn?" = Wyt ti'n iawn? = Are you all right?  
> Da iawn, diolch = I'm fine, thanks.  
> Dw i ddim yn deall = I don't understand.  
> "Shwww maaaae?" = Shw mae? = How are you? (Generally used as a greeting, rather than an actual query.)  
> "Maaaae'n dddddrrrrwwwwg da fi," = Mae'n ddrwg da fi = I'm sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> **Other notes:** The Snowdon Range features most prominently in this story, especially [Crib Goch](http://www.harbach.4ever.org.uk/snowdonia/snowdon/stcg.htm), its most notorious peak. It is part of the Snowdon Horseshoe path, and thousands of people scramble over it every year. The rock there is reportedly solid and provides good holds, but because of its knife-edge and high exposure, it's quite treacherous in bad weather and high winds. As a general rule, between one and two hundred or so people are injured on the Snowdon Range each year, and there are some deaths. Of these injuries and fatalities, most seem to occur on Crib Goch.
> 
> Crib y Ddysgl, otherwise known as [Garnedd Ugain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crib_y_Ddysgl), is the second highest peak in Snowdonia, and is found cheek by jowl with Yr Wyddfa (Mt. Snowdon), the highest peak in Wales and England. Here is [Snowdon in a temperature inversion](http://www.harbach.4ever.org.uk/snowdonia/snowdon/clsn.htm).
> 
> Gwen only conjectures that Jack and Ianto were on Crib Goch, but is that really true? Perhaps they were actually on [Y Lliwedd](http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/wm/sn/898yl75.jpg) (its West Peak), or possibly Crib y Ddysgl, or maybe even Snowdon itself. Then again, it could actually have been Crib Goch. Here's [a really fantastic photo](http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/pg/nw/3p75.jpg) showing the peaks of Crib Goch (roughly a third of the way in from the left, and in front of the other two main peaks), Snowdon (in the middle of the top of the picture) and Crib y Ddysgl (at the top and all the way over to the right). You can see the knife-edge arete of Crib Goch joining it to Crib y Ddysgl. For the wider perspective, here is a nicely labelled, [longer view of the Snowdon Horseshoe](http://www.harbach.4ever.org.uk/snowdonia/snowdon/shoe.htm). I have my thoughts on this. What are yours?
> 
> Some images of the other peaks in this story:
> 
> [Yr Elen](http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/wm/ca/962ye75.jpg)
> 
> [Carnedd Dafydd](http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/wm/ca/1044cd75.jpg)
> 
> [Carnedd Llewelyn](http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/wm/ca/1064cl75.jpg)
> 
> [Tryfan](http://www.harbach.4ever.org.uk/snowdonia/glyders/tryra.htm) (and here's [another view of it](http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/wm/gl/915t75.jpg), and [another](http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/pg/gl/tef75.jpg)) is one of the two most difficult summits in Wales to ascend, the other being Crib Goch. Its summit features two stones, [Adam and Eve](http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/pg/gl/aes75.jpg). The goal for the hard-core mountain climber is to climb on top of one and step to the other. (As one climber mentions, care is required.) Shouldn't be too difficult for Angharad. ;)
> 
> For a hard-core mountain trek, there's [The Welsh 3000s Challenge](http://www.welsh3000s.co.uk/), wherein the challenge is to ascend all the Welsh peaks over three thousand feet within 24 hours without using any form of transportation. From that site comes [a panorama](http://www.welsh3000s.co.uk/panorama.html) of some of the peaks, including some of those mentioned in this story.
> 
> Many of these photos are taken by a mountaineer and photographer named Paul Saunders, and you can find his photos and notes here and here. They are invariably gorgeous, and cover many other areas, including the Brecon Beacons and Threecliff Bay.


End file.
